Whew, good advice, just when I needed it

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Thanks for all the advice yesterday. I'm having a realllllly tough time with the mental game lately. So far, I've actually been able to keep up with the fitness and food reasonably well though, which is nice. All of my mental/emotional game problems right now are about non-weight related things. I think reframing my weight-loss efforts really really helped me - now I view them as one of the first things in my life that I CAN control and it's giving me a sense of empowerment to eat right and exercise. I'm going to try to follow some of the advice from yesterday in dealing with my day to try to stop this downward spiral in other parts of my life.

1 - WORK OUT. Skipping yesterday's workout to get home and spend some time with hubs was good in terms of getting some wedding-vaca planning done and in helping him deal with a back injury that sidelined him from working out. He gets grumpy when forced to put the workout on hold, and I was helpful in preventing any diet backsliding by just being here to distract him. BUT I get grumpy and depressed when I don't get in any workout. I can't take care of others when I don't take care of myself...so no more skipped workouts in the future. I'll just abbreviate them rather than skip them.

ACTION STEP: Work out everyday (most of the time, I've been doubling up some days and taking two or even three rest days per week). Strength x 4 days a week. Cardio x 3 days a week. Yoga when I have the time. If I feel like I need a rest day, make the workout something that is more of an "active recovery."

2 - STOP PROCRASTINATING. I have been avoiding some stressful things with my internship. That, of course, has made them worse and more stressful, and I've been avoiding them more. Today, I will work for a couple of hours on them as soon as I've finished the minimum daily tasks for my actual job. And reward myself with a run. I also have job stuff to do that I've been putting off. I'm going to follow the same plan of getting the bare minimum daily done, then start working on the stressful work there. Fortunately, I am finally starting to recognize that I don't have the mental/emotional energy to deal with that stressful task AND the internship stuff at once. So I won't try to make myself do them both on the same day any more. I need to manage my expectations - and, by extension, my two bosses expectations.

ACTION STEP: Today, work on the report for an hour or two after work tasks (depends on time of day). Send an email to the admin and the internship boss man after my run to check-in with them on Monday. Work in 1-2 hour stretches over the weekend, rewarding myself with a task I find more enjoyable afterwards. Work on the work-related paper on Friday, following the same plan. Work in 1 - 2 hour stretches and reward myself with a workout and with working on other tasks that give me a more immediate sense of satisfaction. Also, hit up any remaining tasks for school or work on Sunday so that I can start Monday feeling like I'm already a little ahead of the game.

3 - BETTER SLEEP SCHEDULE. Lately, I've been going to bed at 11, then crocheting or something for an hour, then laying there trying to sleep. I have also needed more sleep now that I'm working out more. When I get grumpy or depressed, I have been letting myself stay in bed longer and sleeping up to 10 hours at a stretch.

ACTION STEP: Stop expecting myself to get up at 5am and then act like a failure (yep, one of those damn f-words) when I don't. Reschedule my expectations for the day so that I know I will be working on my to-do lists until later in the evening.

This last one is hard. My hubs gets up around 4:30 or 5, works remotely and goes to the gym and is done with all of that before 5pm. Because I have a flexible schedule and don't do mornings as well, I am done with those parts of my day around 9:30pm. By which time he's falling asleep. Our marriage is in this weird tenuous recovery phase (I think), which has helped me realize that I'm not making it and him a priority. I need to figure out a way to do this that also takes care of me. Before the holidays, I was viewing our time together as stressful because it was time that "should" have been spent on all my other obligations. I think I need to reframe my thinking about this so that our time together is relaxing and de-stressing rather than the other way around. That's something to think about while I'm on my run...

There, this is me, trying to be realistic and not negative. I know I have to work on some things. I am trying to acknowledge the behavior and the solutions, not worry about the individual. (I had to delete "I am not a morning person." after I wrote it multiple times. This is hard.)

I swear to God, I'm growing so much this year. I thought I should be done with this when I was younger, but I guess you can keep learning through your whole life. Huh. Like everyone has always said. Duh.

SADWHITEWOLF
I love how you have Action steps for each Item. It puts it all in perspective and shows you that you can change things.Sounds like time management is going to be a big priority for you. I have every faith you can get ahold of it!